


The Adventures of Margot Wilson and the Doctor

by ThePatriotAngel



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Abduction, Cardiff, Deaf Character, F/M, Margot Wilson, Post Season Four, Post-Canon, Torchwood - Freeform, alien race
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePatriotAngel/pseuds/ThePatriotAngel
Summary: Margot Wilson is a young deaf woman. While hiking abroad, she gets abducted by an alien race and carted off for experiments.The Doctor (David Tennant) is moping about the Tardis when she takes him far off to another galaxy to a planet in the Imenium System. There, he finds a woman from earth all cut up and sedated.After the events of season four, the Doctor is lonely without Donna, without Martha, and without Rose. He hasn't traveled with someone in decades, knowing the terrible effect he had on women's lives.But this girl is persistent. She wants answers. She wants to know who the Doctor is, because... she is lonely, too.





	1. One

One

The air tasted like rain. It wasn’t an urgent problem, but soon, the girl walking along the barely-visible path would have to turn back. As she looked around, she saw birds skipping between branches in trees that swayed in the wind like seagrass in murky ocean currents. She imagined she could hear the birds chirping to each other. Above her, the sky was filling with fat clouds, their dark underbellies casting huge shadows across the forest. The air around her even started to appear green as if she was at the bottom of a shallow lake.

She felt tall blonde grasses brush her thighs as she crossed a wide meadow toward a switchback that peeked from behind a thicket. The path should end at a small, ancient graveyard that served as a historical marker of a small village. Around her, tall aspens and dogwoods clustered together, gossiping when they thought she wasn’t listening. 

A thick layer of fluff from the trees coated the ground and drifted like snow around tree trunks and clumps of grass.

The girl tucked a strand of ash blonde hair behind her ear with bare fingertips that. Fingerless gloves of organic cotton protected her palms from further damage. She had made them tender from the rock-climbing last week.

She soon felt a rumble under her feet and was sure it was the vibration of the waterfall she knew fell from the rock face on the other side of the rise. She was so excited to see it. The untrodden path through the new grass soon turned to a rocky stripe, preventing most grass from growing over the path. It winded into the tree line as she came out of the meadow. The sun disappeared behind the thick, pine canopy and the air grew clammy around her as it filled with moisture. Just a little longer.

Her calves burned as she kept a steady pace up the switchbacks, traversing back and forth as she ascended the mountain. She fastened her thumbs under the straps of her backpack and kept going.

As she rose to the top, an impossibly bright light enveloped her, brighter than the sun. It flew towards her and shot a kaleidoscope of blinding light, and through her eyes were immediately closed, she was already affected. The girl’s eyes burned as she threw her hands over them and sank to her knees in shock. Pain erupted from her head behind her eyes, stabbing and throbbing with each quick heartbeat.

When she tried to open her eyes again, she saw nothing but white. Frantically, she rubbed her eyelids, trying to get them to see again and screaming when that failed. She felt warmth on the outside of her hands and an air current blowing her hair away from her face. Something was close to her: the bright light. She could feel it like the direct sun on a summer day.

Her heart jumping in her chest, she scrambled backward on the ground, paying no mind to the rocks that stabbed through her gloves. Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. She shrieked for help, not knowing how to articulate the words, feeling the vibrations run through her body. She felt the heat come closer, closer until it felt like there was a bonfire raging a few feet up the mountain.

Then a hand, rough like sandpaper and clawed, grabbed her forearm. It felt larger than any hand she’s ever seen. She hit at it blindly with her other arm, but it grabbed that one, too. Defenseless, she froze.

The clawed hands then dragged her away with a strong, steady force. She screamed as the gravel under her raked her sides. When she could scream no more, she panted air in and out so fast that it made her head dizzy. Knives of pain shot up and down her limbs.

She needed clarity. She needed a way to escape. She thrashed, but it was too strong, holding her arms in a vice grip. It dragged her along the prickly ground covered in rocks and fallen pine needles that stuck her skin. Things stabbed at her body, prompting her to release a sob into the air.

Soon, she was being dragged downhill, and she knew she was back in the meadow when she felt the tall yellow grasses under her raw skin. Shockingly, the ground under her bleeding skin turned to cold metal. Somehow, they were now inside. She felt no more wind, and the air was much colder. The creature kept her arms in its vicious hold, keeping her from getting to her feet as its heavy steps shook the ground. She thrashed her body with the last of her energy hoping to surprise the monster and run away from it, but instead, its claws pierced her skin and held on to her by her sinewy muscles.

She felt hot, sticky liquid on her legs and hips and knew it was her blood pouring down from her forearms. The rocks and gravel of the path had made slices through her clothing underneath her, and blood poured from that shredded skin, too. Her hiking backpack protected her back and shoulders. Her head swam, and before she knew it, she was fading out, blind and deaf to the world.

  



	2. Two

Two

The Doctor sat on the edge of an open floor panel of the Tardis, digging absently through a suitcase of items. His glasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose, magnifying his narrowed, serious eyes. His face was bathed in the greenish light of the engines. The Tardis hummed as it drifted through space, having no specific destination.

The Doctor sighed, choosing a blue denim jacket from the case. He unfolded it and held it in the air in front of him. It was a woman’s jacket, long-sleeve and cropped short. His face grew solemn. Memories danced in his eyes, dripping with melancholy grief.

The beach at Bad Wolf Bay sparkled in his memory. Blonde hair blew in the wind. He saw the sun gleaming in the tears collecting in her eyes and the second Doctor, who stayed behind her. The Doctor was happy to give Rose something of himself but devastated that he was once again alone. For those on Earth that he’d left behind, it had been about two years since everything happened. But for him… he’d stopped counting the decades. The memories were still vivid. His chest felt heavy, his toes and fingers cold.

Suddenly, the Tardis jerked, throwing the Doctor and the suitcase sideways into the nearby wall. Groaning, he dropped the jacket and nimbly got to his feet as the floor lurched and threw him like a plastic bag in the wind. A circular control panel covered with strange knobs, levers, and dials sat in the middle of the round room. The Doctor grabbed for a screen, reading it intensely as his defined eyebrows furrowed.

“The Imenium System! Why are you taking me to the Imenium System?” He grabbed a handlebar just as the floor jerked underneath him. The lights flashed around the room and the engine roared.

The Tardis came to a stop and went silent. Exasperated, the Doctor straightened up, reaching for a brown trench coat to put on over his blue suit jacket. He stomped toward the door. “I’m trusting you,” he said, pointing to a glass column in the center of the control panel. The lights dimmed for a second and went back to normal.

The Doctor opened the Tardis’s blue, wooden door, peeking through to a darker room outside. He was on a ship. The room around the Tardis seemed to be for storage as metal crates of disregarded wires and metal parts lay stacked against the metal walls. The only light came from small lamps by an arched doorway that led to a hallway.

The Doctor quietly rushed toward the doorway. He stopped before going through, reaching into his coat to pull out a tool. He pressed a button, and the tip lit up, a small, high-pitched noise emitting from it.

“The ship shows signs of a human life form,” he said to nobody. “We’re two lightyears away from Earth. Someone’s been naughty.”

He slinked around the corner, waving his tool back and forth and following it where it pointed. There was populous noise coming from a large room bathed in blue light. The Doctor came onto a balcony overlooking that room. He cautiously moved to the edge and looked down.

“Imans.” Tall, lizard-looking creatures stood in a circle around a medical table, blocking the Doctor’s view from what was on it. If he had one guess, it would be the human.

“Clear the room,” one alien said in its language. The Tardis translated it for the Doctor’s ears. The other creatures scattered to different exits, allowing the Doctor to see who was on the table by the lizard person.

Astonished, he saw a woman, a young one in her twenties, lying there, her eyes open but blank. There were cuts all over her, strategic cuts made by a knife, not by accident. Her ashy hair was unkempt, and her skin pale. IVs were in both of her arms, feeding her what he assumed to be a sedative. Her eyes were open but unfocused and still. The Doctor’s heart broke for her as he saw the lizard study her naked body scientifically.

Angry, he quickly left the platform, finding a way into the room where the remaining alien was picking up a circular saw. He switched it on, a terrible screech echoing through the room. The Doctor ran full speed as the creature’s saw converged on the girl’s skull.

“STOP. Stop. Stop right there.” He spoke just in time for the alien, not yet hostile, to hold back, his intent in favor of looking at the Doctor. “Who are you? Why are you here?” It asked in an accent full of hissing.

“I’m the Doctor,” he answered, his hands cautiously in the air above the girl. He waved in front of her eyes, but she wasn’t responsive. “This is a human girl, what in the bloody heck are you doing?” He reached for her pulse under her jaw. It took a second to feel it for it was so weak.

“Tissue samples,” it said. It hit the Doctor that the creature was about to cut into her brain. That was why the Tardis brought him here. She knew how protective of the human race he was.

“I’m taking this girl. Do _not_ try to stop me. You won’t like what happens next.” He reached for the girl’s closest forearm and carefully gripped the IV needle, pulling it out of her arm. It was sickeningly large for a needle, the size people on Earth use to give shots to livestock.

“I won’t let you take my experiment!” The saw screeched through the air again, this time coming for him. The Doctor jumped away just in time to avoid a nasty cut. The Iman was faster than it looked, on his heels in three seconds. It ran low to the ground, hissing as it chased after him. The Doctor aimed his blue-tipped tool at the Lizard’s head.

“Sonic screwdriver!”

The lizard crumpled to the ground, gripping its head as it hissed loudly. After a moment, it lay still, the saw still rotating on the ground next to it, the Doctor shut it off with a quick jab of the screwdriver. “Sorry,” he said to the still body of the alien.

He returned to the girl on the table, brushing her long hair out of her eyes. He ripped the suit jacket from his shoulders and used it to cover her bare torso. “Oh, dear. Oh dear. My goodness.” He removed the other IV and began with the straps that held her arms, legs, and torso to the cold metal table. “My, what can I do. What can I-”

The Doctor’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. Yes.” He finished quickly with all of the straps, sonicing them so that they would split. There were angry red marks where the straps had bit into her skin. He replaced the screwdriver in his pocket. The room was silent and there was no sign of the other Imans. The Doctor took a deep breath and, slowly and intimately, lowered his face to the girl’s dead lips.

He kissed her, his face lighting up with sparkles of yellow energy. The light passed through their lips into the girl’s body. Slowly, her color came back. The cuts on her arms, legs, and chest glowed with the yellow light as they healed without scars to taint her lovely skin.

He released a breath into her mouth, the air expanding her chest. With his fingers at the pulse on her neck, he felt her heart beat with more vigor and was glad this idea worked. He disconnected from her lips and drew in a full breath. “Let’s get you back where it’s safe.” He lifted the girl off the table, struggling in his weak state, and carried her bridal through the halls, up a set of stairs, and into the Tardis, thankful when the door opened and closed for him.

He sat the girl down on the seats behind the control panel, panting with fatigue. The lights dimmed slightly, casting a low yellow glow over the girl’s youthful face. “The damage was pretty bad. It’ll be a while before you wake up, love.” He petted her hair affectionately. He knew he didn’t even know the girl, but he felt a connection with her. Especially since he’d just given her two hundred years of his life.

He picked her back up, resolving to carry her the rest of the way to a bedroom to sleep off the effects of the sedative.  



	3. Three

Three

The Doctor was alerted from the other room when the human started to wake up. All the lights in the control room went dark, the only source of light being the one in the hallway. It blinked twice. The shaft of light shined through the doorway on the Doctor’s grim face as he stood from the seat with difficulty. He stretched for a few seconds, trying to get his body to work. For the first time, his body felt old, and his energy was greatly depleted.

It had been years since someone stayed in her room. Just looking at the door brought back memories. Blonde hair disappearing playfully around the door frame as she ran. Red hair bedraggled up from a weary night’s sleep. The Doctor opened the door without making a sound, not wanting to scare the poor girl. She was in another strange place, and if her memories stayed with her, she’d be wondering where her injuries had gone.

She was sitting against the headboard with her hands grasping her head. Her alarm was apparent in the way that her breaths raced. She looked at the door as it opened, looking like she’d seen a ghost. Her eyes wide with fear, she scrambled away from him on the bed until she couldn’t go any further.

“Hey,” he approached with caution, his hands in the air and his demeanor calm, “it’s alright. I’m the Doctor.”

The girl gasped at his silhouette, worry lines creased her forehead. “What do you remember,” he asked her, coming to a stop a pace from the bed. He clapped twice, and a light slowly came on in the ceiling. The light illuminated the two life forms. “I’m the Doctor. You’re safe,” he said again.

She had the sheets wrapped around her body, which was still bare. The Doctor hadn’t wanted to dress her as he thought it would be an invasion of her privacy. The woman started making frantic motions with her hands, the sheet falling down one shoulder. The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed, and he reached for his glasses. Then he felt the Tardis in his mind like it normally did when it was translating a language. But this was different: she hadn't spoken.

The girl made more wild gestures, this time making eye contact, and he felt his soul rock with a wave of emotion from her.

"I understand you're scared, but I promise you're safe he-" he paused. She hadn't spoken but said she was scared. The Tardis had translated the meaning of her motion- It's sign language! “Oh, that’s genius. I can understand you,” he enthused, smiling.

The girl sighed, easing back into the bed a bit and giving way to some of her tiredness, but still on alert like a cornered animal. Her body shivered, and it looked like she was going into shock. She signed again, the Tardis helping him understand the meaning. It was so strange. It was like the Tardis magically granted him the ability to understand her signing.

The girl made more motions. “ _Where am I_ ," his mind interpreted.

“I… It’s better if I show you. You’re not on earth. But I think you already knew that.” He looked at the woman over his glasses, tilting his head and crossing his arms.

“ _Clothes. Can I have clothes?”_

“Oh. Of course. I’ll show you were. There’s a shower, too. Come on,” he gestured for her to follow. She stood. The white sheet wrapped securely around her body. The Doctor couldn’t see, but he knew there were no scars from the trauma her body had endured.

“Do you remember the lizard people,” he asked when they were in the hallway. She gave him a questioning look.

“Sorry, I wasn’t facing you, was I? I said, do you remember the lizard people?” He was apprehensive about bringing up anything that might trigger a panic attack. Upon reasoning with himself, he found that it was necessary to his explanation of how all of her injuries healed.

The girl nodded, wiping her eyes for a brief second. She signed again, holding on to her sheet with her underarms, “ _What happened to me? I remember the ship. Darkness. How did I get here_?” Her hands moved in intricate, beautiful patterns that left him fascinated.

The Doctor made sure he was facing her. “I found you on the Iman ship. They… They were taking tissue samples. I stopped them before they got to your brain.”

 _“How long ago was this?”_ She looked down at her own arms, rubbing where the wound should have been. Her ashy hair was streaked with sun, and a few freckles dotted her nose, shoulders, and arms faintly, the only marks. _“I should have scars.”_

The Doctor opened the door to the massive closet. Huge racks of clothing from different planets and time periods hung along the metal walls of the Tardis’s interior. “You’re right. I healed you when I found you. I brought you to my ship,” he gestured around as he led her to the earth clothes, “and you’ve been sleeping for two days.”

She stopped walking and stared at the ground for a moment, lost in her own head. Her hands played with the sheet at her collar bones.

The Doctor waved at her. “Come on. Let’s get you something warm to wear. If nothing fits, just let me know and I’ll find you something different. I’m going to go down the hallway and cook you up a right meal, sound okay?”

“ _That’s fine. Thank you,_ ” she signed, much calmer now than before. He hoped his hospitality would ease her mind.

“Bathroom’s through that door, there’s plenty of shampoo in the shower and brushes in the cabinet. Good water pressure.” He left the room then, leaving her to care for herself. He doubted that the Imans took very good care of her hygiene.

Just as he was leaving he paused and turned back to her. She had started to browse the rack of pants and shirts. 

He waved to get her attention. “What’s your name?”

Her hand lifted into the air, making something he interpreted as letters. M-A-R-G-O-T W-I-L-S-O-N.

“It’s nice to meet you, Margot. I’m the Doctor.”


	4. Four

Four

The Doctor found plenty of Earth food in the kitchen and decided to make something light and healthy that wouldn’t shock her system. He settled for cheesy tomato sandwiches, toasted and ready to dip in the basil dipping sauce he had found in Chicago in the 1920s. The Tardis’s kitchen was medium sized, mimicking a rustic cottage he had once visited. He had updated the appliances, but the rest looked the same. The cabinets were made from a dark mahogany wood while the walls were covered in a light imperfect stone brick.

He had spent about half an hour preparing food and setting two places at the table when Margot came wandering down the hallway. Her hair was wet from a fresh shower, towel dried so it wouldn’t drip. There was more blood or dirt to taint her lovely skin. She wore a comfortable loose tank top and button up, undone, a casual pair of jeans, and a pair of brown combat boots.

“Hey,” he said as she came into the room, “I hope you like tomatoes.” He remembered when tomatoes were first brought to Italy. He had to keep the comment to himself.

She touched the back of her fist to her lips and sent it into the air in front of her. “ _I love them_.”

He smiled goofily as she sat down at the nearer place setting and scooted her sturdy chair up to the table. She reached for the glass pitcher of ice water the Doctor had set out and poured them both a glass. He smiled and set the two ceramic plated of food down on the table.

Signing with one hand while the other reached for a sandwich, she asked, “ _Your name is what again_?”

The Doctor picked up his own sandwich. “The Doctor.” He dipped the sandwich into his little bowl of sauce and took a bite, loving the memories the taste brought back.

“ _That’s weird_. _Doctor what_?”

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders with a grumpy, but cute, look on his face. as she took her first bite. “You’re feeling better?” She made loud smacking noises as she chewed and nodded to his question.

“Where are you from, Margot?”

“ _California._ ” She took a drink of cool water. “ _When I graduated from the California School for the Deaf, I started traveling. I was in Switzerland… I was hiking. Something appeared and there was a flash of light_.” Wet tears started to form along the rims of her eyelids, but she blinked them away. She looked down at the table while finishing her bite.

The Doctor’s heart softened. I felt empathy for the girl blossoming in his chest. Her raw emotions were so prevalent in her expressions. He noticed that facial expressions were a huge part of her language and that a different expression could totally change the meaning of what she was signing.

“What day was it when you left,” he asked, trying to get an idea of how long she’d been gone.

“ _A Sunday, June 4._ ”

The Doctor frowned. “What year?” She looked at him strangely but answered “ _2008”_ in signed numbers.

The doctor nodded. She was taken from the 21st century. For that he was glad: alien life wasn’t a secret in 2008, not after everything that happened with the Daleks and the earth being stolen. His face grew grim at the memory. It hurt too much to think about that, so he ran his fingertip along a grain in the wood of the table.

“ _My hair is longer than it used to be,”_ Margot signed, pinching a lock of her strawberry hair so that about two inches grew out between her fingers. _“I must have been gone for months_. _It’s fine_. _No one would know I’m gone_.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, his head tipped back, and he set his sandwich down. “What do you mean?”

Margot set her food down as well, starting to explain with both hands. “ _My mother died when I was a kid. My father sent me off to a deaf school and only saw me during the summer and on holidays. We don’t talk.”_ The Doctor observed her cold eyes as she said this. He determined that she either moved past the grief her father had caused her, or she still felt it but was unwilling to let it show.

“ _When I graduated, I came home and found a 24-year-old bikini waxer in his bed. He didn’t even come to the ceremony.”_

The Doctor recoiled in surprise. “Are you serious?”

The girl nodded. “ _After all that stuff with the planets in the sky and the Earth being stolen… and the Daleks. When all that went away, I decided to travel. See the world while I still could_.” They sat in silence for a few minutes as they finished their sandwiches. When she was done, Margot wiped her hands with a napkin and looked at him solemnly. _“Why are you alone?”_

The Doctor’s face went grim. He should have known that she would eventually ask this question. No one flies a spaceship all alone, there’s always a crew. “It’s better this way,” he said, standing up to take their plates to the sink. His bones creaked and ached. He shrugged his suit jacket off and hung it over the back of his chair and rolled up his shirt sleeves so that they wouldn’t get wet. Margot patted the table to get his attention. He turned.

 _“Do you really believe that?”_ When the Doctor looked into her eyes, he could see that she understood. That she was lonely, too.

He turned back to wash the plates and set them out to dry. When he was finished, he put his jacket back on and smiled at Margot. The girl looked confused again.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I can take you back to Earth. Have to make a quick stop in Cardiff, but after that, I can take you wherever you want to go.”

Her eyes lit up with relief and gladness. “ _Really? Thank you.”_   



	5. Five

Five

Margot followed the Doctor down the hallways to the control room, watching in fascination as the lights ahead of them turned on on their own and shut off behind them. It was easier to tell her that the Tardis had sensors that controlled the lights, not that it was a living being and simply felt where they were inside. He went up to the screen above one of the control panels and sent a scan over the Earth. He found that on the day that Margot was taken, there was an Iman ship over Europe.

He looked at Margot just as she was about to touch something on the panel. He quickly waved at her, causing her to freeze and look at him. He shook his head and pointed to her hand and smiled calmly. “Don’t touch that. You’ll want to hold on to something.” She looked confused, but followed instructions and stepped back to grab onto a railing with both hands.

The Doctor went to work, spinning around the circular console, pushing buttons, throwing switches, and twisting knobs. The eclectic mix of lights and machines all started working, and then the room lurched.

Margot cried out in surprise but held fast to the rail. The Doctor steered them through time and space to Cardiff and landed the Tardis as gently as he could in the day after she was abducted. When the room stilled, Margot stood up and straightened her clothes.

 _“What happened,”_ she signed.

“Well, Margot, we’ve landed.” He twisted a knob on the panel, and then raced toward the door thrilled by the thought of being on Earth again so soon, grabbing his long brown coat. “Welcome to Cardiff!” In a grand gesture, he opened the police box door and strolled through.

He breathed the Cardiff air, salty from the nearby ocean. He put his hands on his hips, taking in the 21st-century architecture and people bustling about. Margot stepped into the street behind him. He let her have a few moments to take it in. She was trying to work out how they got from space to the UK in just a few short seconds.

Thinking back on it, he could have prepared her for that better.

Margot observed the blue door, electing to walk a full circle around the small police phone box. She looked at him and found he was watching her. _“It’s like in Harry Potter. Like the tent. Bigger on the inside!_ ”

The Doctor let out a cry of delight. “Isn’t it brilliant? It allows me to park anywhere I want.” He was thrilled that she was smart enough to understand that quickly and on her own.

Margot smiled and shook her head. It was totally strange but she liked it when the Doctor smiled. He acted now with more energy. It rubbed off on her. _“So, why are we here?”_

“To visit a friend.”

**

The front room of the Torchwood office was so normal, so ordinary. The Doctor rung the bell at the front desk and waited for someone to appear. He smiled at Margot, hands in his pockets as he rocked back and forth on his Converse All-Stars.

A young man came out from a hallway and stopped in surprise. “Oh, oh my God. Doctor?” The man had had light skin and short, dark hair. He wore a red dress shirt under a black suit jacket with a black tie. A cup of coffee steamed from a colorful mug in his hand.

The doctor extended his hand and the young man shook it over the counter. “Ianto, isn’t it? Pleasure to meet you in person.”

The man was too shocked to speak. The Doctor gestured to Margot. “This is my new friend, Margot Wilson.”

The man nodded at him, then her, and back to him. He was speechless and didn’t know what to say. The Doctor looked excited and was almost bursting with energy. “So… Can you buzz us in?” He rocked back and forth on his feet again, hands back in his pants pockets.

“Right!” Ianto leaned to press a button under the counter. “Of course, sorry. Go right in.” The Doctor and Margot watched as a secret door in the wall opened up to a hidden metal hallway. The Doctor gave Ianto the biggest smile before practically skipping into the new hallway, glancing back to make sure Margot was behind him.

After an elevator ride down several floors, they came into this big room, so tall that it must go all the way up to the street. A multiple-level complex surrounded them full of weird machines and lots of wires. It was bright, the lights reflecting off the many metal surfaces.

There was a woman standing at a computer, an attractive woman with dark hair and bangs. She stood on the bottom level next to some huge machine in the center of the room that was connected by a series of wires to her computer. When she saw the Doctor, she went on high alert and drew her gun. “Oi! Identify yourself,” she said with a heavy Welsh accent.

The Doctor raised his hands. “Oh, whoa whoa whoa! I’m the Doctor, it’s just me!”

A voice called out from around a corner near them, “Doctor?” The attractive woman holstered her gun.

The Doctor turned toward the voice. A man came striding out to meet them. He was tall, sturdy-looking, and was wearing a button-up shirt with suspenders with a mid-century haircut. It was really working for him.

“Doctor!” He rushed toward the thin man in the suit and abruptly grabbed him by the face and kissed him right on the mouth.

The Doctor looked shocked, but not as shocked as all the others standing around watching them French-kissing. Margot was jaw-dropped and wide-eyed before she got a hold of herself and straightened up. She looked around to the rest of the people and to Ianto who walked up behind them.

The man let go of the Doctor and stepped back to look him up and down, holding his shoulders. “Doctor, it’s been years.” The man had an American accent.

“Jack!” The Doctor smiled a goofy grin that made him look younger. His gelled hair bounced with his movement. He turned to greet the woman, who was called Gwen Cooper. Ianto crossed his arms beside Margot. She looked at his face to read his lips. “That’s just how he says hello.” Ianto still didn’t look too happy about the kiss, leaving Margot to infer that he and the American were together.

The Doctor finished introducing himself and stepped back to stand beside Margot. He gestured to her. “This is my new friend, Margot Wilson from _California_.” He raised his eyebrows. “Margot this is-” the American stepped forward to offer her his hand.

“Captain Jack Harkness. I’m American, too.” He sent her a killer smile with capable lips and she felt her heart jump. She couldn’t help but think about what those lips could do. She took his hand and he held it gently before lifting it up to kiss it.

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Stop it.” Jack sent a jokingly disappointed look to the Doctor before letting go of Margot’s hand. “Fine… What are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you.”

The Doctor rocked on his heels with his hands in his pockets. “Oh, Tardis needed to recharge and I figured I’d stop by and say hello. Where’s Martha?”

The group started moving to a set of steps and down to the main area where the big machine was. Jack looked at the Doctor, hiding his pity for the man. “She’s in Africa somewhere. A disease broke out, and she’s doing her doctor thing. Been gone about a month.” The alien was sad deep down, and Jack could feel it. There was something wrong with him. He would never come to visit on his own accord. It was possible that it had been years and years for the Doctor since they’d met even though to him it had only been about two. Time travel was funny that way.

“Do you want to speak in private, Doctor? I’ve got a couple of things to discuss.”

The Doctor found Margot walking with Ianto, saying nothing because she likely knew none of them could understand sign language. They also didn’t know she had been deaf and didn’t speak. He would let them figure that out.

Jack led them to his office and found a chair for the Doctor to sit in. The time lord groaned as he settled into the chair. “It’s so good to see you, Doctor.” He smiled at him as he sat in his plush leather office chair at his desk. “How are you?”

The Doctor took a deep breath and rubbed his tired eyes. “Well… Old. I feel so old. Hundreds of years older.”

Jack looked shocked. “You haven’t seen me for that long?”

“It was decades since I have seen you.” He took a breath and at Jack’s confused face he explained, “When I first found Margot, she was on an Imenian ship. They had her tied to an operating table and were taking ‘tissue samples.’”

“Oh, god. I hate Imans.” Jack could see the ghost of the image in the Doctor’s old eyes.

“I fought off the Imans, but she was so hurt, Jack, all I could do to save her was… to give her two hundred years of my life.”

There was silence. The Doctor watched Jack as he sat there in silence. He knew how big of a gift that was. One or two years of his life was huge, but two hundred- that was almost insane. “I think, if I’m honest, two hundred might have been a bit too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I healed all of her scars, too. Every injury she’s sustained. It’s likely that she will live for more than her normal expected life span.”

Jack laughed. “I know how that feels. She doesn’t speak much, does she?”

“She is deaf. She prefers signing over speaking. The Tardis translates her signing like any spoken language. It’s quite fascinating.”

“How long has it been since that happened?”

“Oh, she slept for a couple of days while my energy was healing her injuries and her body had to reset. After she woke up, it was a couple of hours before we came here.”

“Oh, really? Why did you come here?”

The Doctor smiled gently at his friend. “Well, the Tardis and I are connected, so when I drained myself, she gave energy also. I came back to the rift to recharge her. And bring Margot home.”

Jack looked troubled then. “And to rest yourself? I can tell you are tired, Doc. Do you think she will want to go home or stay with you like a companion?”

“Well… I haven’t told her all about the Tardis. I don’t think she knows I’m not from Earth, and she doesn’t know the Tardis is a time machine. Technically, today, “He gestured to the street above, “is the day after the Imans abducted her, so she’s lost basically no time.”

Jack sat back in his chair. “So… how old are you now, then?”

The doctor counted in his head for a second. “Eleven hundred forty-nine. I think.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He looked up at his friend to continue the conversation.

Jack felt his heart skip a beat. The Doctor’s eyes were so deep, hiding so much pain. Like they were a balloon swelling, about to burst. Jack wanted to take that pain. He hated how it made the Doctor look. “Does Margot have a home to go back to?”

“She said she grew up in a deaf school after her mother died.” He sighed and sat back in the chair, crossing his arms. “Graduated out of there. There’s always her father, but she told me he wasn’t a very nice bloke. She may not have a home anymore.”

Jack thought. “Have you had anyone in the Tardis since… you know?”

The doctor shook his head slowly. “No. Have you hired anyone new?”

Jack laughed for a moment. “No. But I gave Gwen and Ianto a raise after what happened. That’s probably the only reason they stay now.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said, “that or they do what I do and just can’t stop saving the human race. Once you spend time here and you get to know the humans, you recognize how special they are.” He looked at Jack who had his thumbs hooked around his suspender straps as he stared at the Doctor. Jack gave him a small smile. He’d been with the doctor on many adventures and understood. He was one of the few people who could understand.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, Doctor, but please tell me what happened two years ago after you dropped us off in London. Where are Rose and the other Doctor? What happened to Donna?” 


End file.
